Hello, I'm Fred Stella, President of the Interfaith Dialogue Association. Welcome to another edition of Common Threads. For those of you who are long-time listeners to Common Threads, you probably know that it's been a very long time since we've had someone from the Reformed tradition on the show. Well, that's not entirely true, actually. I can think of a few conversations I've had in the not-too-distant past. with guests who do fall into that camp, but it has been a long time since we've had a Calvinist on the show to actually talk about the doctrines and dogmas of the Reformed faith. One reason for that is, well, this is West Michigan and there are ample opportunities to hear this particular brand of Christianity expounded upon either in churches or on the radio and through other various media. But we at the Interfaith Dialogue Association owe a debt of gratitude to a number of reformed institutions locally. They have participated in conferences, offered their services as speakers, and contributed to our growth financially. We thought that this, the quincentennial year of John Calvin's birth, would be an excellent time to revisit this notable movement that has played such a part in West Michigan's growth and prosperity. Often when people on the outside think of Reformed here, they consider all Calvinists to fall into either the Christian Reformed Church or the Reformed Church of America camp. But there are a number of denominations that share the core values of the Christian Reformed and Reformed Church of America organizations, but not the numbers. Today we'll be speaking with a representative from the United Reformed Church, Rev. Danny Hyde. A little bit about Reverend Hyde. He is a son of Southern California. He was born in Long Beach and grew up in northern Orange County in Redondo Beach. He was a boogie boarder and a basketball player. He now lives in Oceanside with his wife and their sons. He went to Southern California College for his bachelor's. His Master's of Divinity came from Westminster Theological Seminary and currently He is a master's candidate here in Grand Rapids at the Puritan Reform Theological Seminary. But we are talking to him in California. Reverend Hyde was ordained in 2000 at the Escondido United Reformed Church with the calling to be a church planter of a new reformed church in the coastal north county of San Diego. In November of 2002 he became the pastor of the Oceanside United Reformed Church. And his writings include, Jesus Loves the Little Children, Why We Baptize Children, The Good Confession, An Exploration of the Christian Faith, What to Expect in Reformed Worship, a visitor's guide, and his latest book, which we'll be talking about as well today, In Living Color, Pastoral Counsel on Images of Christ. We welcome to Common Threads, Rev. Danny Hyde. Hello there. Hello, thanks for having me. Certainly. I read some of the book in Living Color, and I want to talk about that right off the bat if you don't mind. Because it really is, it certainly can act, among other things, as an introduction to the Reformed faith on many points for people who are not too schooled in it. But in the book, you say that one of the reasons you wrote the book is that people in your church tend not to know an awful lot about the Reformed tradition, and this is your way of answering questions, particularly when people would ask you about any sort of icon. And what fascinated me is that apparently there are a lot of folks in your church who are not schooled with Reformed theology. Then what is it that draws them to the church if they don't know the theology right off the bat? Yeah, that's a great question. My congregation is very small. We have about a hundred or so members and probably another, give and take, say 20 to 25 people at any given moment, who are sort of coming through, who are visiting, who are interested, and so forth. In my congregation, of course, in Oceanside, California, not the bastion of Dutch Reformed Orthodoxy like Grand Rapids would be. And I guess the main thing that draws people, besides the theology, which people hear through various radio shows, such as Whitehorsen or Ligonier with R.C. Sproul, or even just online. Most people find us through the internet by searching, but I guess at the core of it really is the idea of, first of all, transcendence, that there's something greater and bigger than their run-of-the-mill megachurch that we have so many about here So in terms of transcendence and reverence and awe with God, but also in terms of history, in the history of the church, and that there is a tradition larger than their particular local church. So that's usually one of the main things. But even farther beyond that, even at the core of that, it really comes down to the doctrines and the stability that those doctrines can give. There's some discussion in Reformed academic circles in terms of, you know, what's the core of Reformed theology in the 16th century and, you know, there have been various hypotheses over the years, but really when it comes down to it, the Reformed faith has always sought to give assurance and you know, whether it's with a high sort of scholastic feeling theology, or even with the more pietistic movements in our tradition, at the core of all those, it comes down to an assurance, a person's personal sense that they do belong to the people of God. And a lot of people out here, especially, very transient culture, you know, so they're looking for roots, A culture in which Christian expression out here tends to be pretty broad evangelical revivalism. People really do look for something that gives them hope and something that gives them core values to root their life living in a place that's such in flux as it is here. That's probably at the root of it, really, is the assurance and then sort of secondarily in terms of the reverence and the seriousness, the stability that we offer to people. So you would say that in your church a good percentage of these people are coming from traditions other than the Reformed? Yeah, in my congregation we have two ladies who are Dutch. One of them grew up in Grand Rapids And one of them grew up out here in Chino, which is sort of a Southern California version of Grand Rapids on a much smaller scale. And pretty much everyone else, you know, we have some people that have come through other Presbyterian or Reformed churches, but even there, if you trace their history back, it's similar to like my own where I was born and raised Roman Catholic and then converted in a four-square church, educated at a Pentecostal college, youth pastor in a non-denominational church, and then somehow in the providence of God found my way to a Reformed seminary. And most of my members have even much more, you know, staggering and interesting story than I have, you know, how they found Reformed tradition, our local church in particular. So yeah, most of our members, if not all of them, come to us from Roman Catholicism, evangelical, or really for a good number also, no church background at all. So let's get down to some of the basics. What is Reformed? Is the word Reformed and the word Calvinist synonymous all the time, or are there times that you can use one word where you really wouldn't use the other? Well, you know, just like with Lutheran, the title Calvinist really wasn't the title of choice by those adherents. The Lutherans were called Lutherans because it was a way of saying, oh, you're a follower of one particular person, and the Calvinists the same. They were pegged as Calvinists and not Christians. The term Reformed was more the term of choice because it emphasizes that that we believe our beliefs and our worship and our way of living to be Christian, and to be Christian in the most Catholic of senses, you know, the historic Christian tradition, but yet seeking to reform that according to the Word of God. So, when somebody asks me, you know, what does it mean to be reformed, I always tell them it means to be reformed according to the Word of God, and, you know, that of course then means something, particular terms. Obviously, you know, a very high view of Scripture over and against, say, the position of Rome, which has Scripture and tradition as co-equal sources of authority. And then obviously, things such as being justified by faith alone, apart from any works, would be the second sort of major emphasis. And then a third emphasis would be the the idea of living to the glory of God, Soli Deo Gloria, those three main headings, really, in my mind, have always been a good summary of what exactly the Reformed churches believe. You know, it's interesting. A lot of people, when they think of the various Jewish denominations, they refer to one branch as Reformed Judaism, but the Jews are very quick to point out, no, we're not Reformed, we're Reform. Reform, yep. Do you appreciate the word reformed, or is there any sense that you would say, no wait a minute, we really should also consider ourselves reformed as well, in terms of a continual act of reforming, or has the Reformation pretty much stopped? Yeah, what's interesting sociologically is in our circles as Christians, the title reformed describes you as an ultra-conservative. And in Jewish circles, and I know this having studied some Judaism while I was in college, reform tends to be on the left, if you will, the liberal, more progressive, if you will, sort of Americanized version of Judaism over and against Orthodox. That is correct, sure. So it's really interesting, you know, people hear that term and they come to our church, you know, they see our sign out and people people don't really know what to make of it. They say, well, is it reform? And they think, well, is that like the liberal Jews, or, you know, reformed? Even out here, you know, we have Robert Shuler, who's a member of the RCA, and most people see that as very liberal, even among evangelical Christians, they see that as very liberal. Or they think, you know, reformed, like a reformed school for bad kids. So, you know, On the one hand, you know, the title Reformed is a good term because it does emphasize, on the one hand, our continuity with the Christian faith, you know, being reformed according to the Word of God, but also our distinctiveness. But it is true, too, that later in the history of Reformed churches, say in the 17th century, 18th century, there was a slogan translated into English as, you know, Reformed but always reforming. And we certainly want to emphasize that reformed aspect of it, where we believe the Reformation was an important and necessary work of God in the life of the Christian Church. And we do have certain confessions and certain dogmas and doctrines that are, which we believe are non-negotiable, but at the same time, we do need to continually be reformed and continually put our theology and our liturgy and our practice and all that we think, say, and do up against the light of the Word. And so we don't want to be, you know, dead. We don't want to simply be those who idolize the past and put it on a shelf. We do want to have a living, vibrant faith and a tradition that does impact the world and does seek to speak to people where they're at these days. If you're just joining us, you're listening to Common Threads here on WGBU. Today we're talking about the Reformed tradition and the book, In Living Color, with its author, Reverend Danny Hyde. Another thing that some people, when they hear the word Reformed, they think about it in terms of creation, fall, redemption, meaning that creation is broken and that we, or the reformed people, must repair that, or again to use a Jewish term, tikkun olam. But that really isn't what you're talking about, is it? Well, no. Certainly that distinction of creation, fall, redemption, and then also consummation, to add a fourth little word there, It really is a wonderful way to think about the history of humanity and the work that God has and is and will do in history. The question, I guess, that you were getting at is sort of the issue of cultural transformation and who's really responsible for that. On the one hand, we sort of want to affirm, and this is speaking for my own experience that we want to affirm, of course, that we are salt and light, as Jesus talks about, in the world. Salt, preserving the world from, you know, utter destruction, the wrath of God, but at the same time also light, and shining light and pointing people to the truth of Jesus Christ and the way of salvation. But at the same time, we do want to emphasize that, you know, any cultural endeavor that we enter in this life, you know, the best intentions are still going to be tainted by sin, and it's still going to fall, you know, woefully short of what God Himself will do. And so, you know, from my point of view, I would certainly want to emphasize that transformational aspect of creation being wholly the work of God the Holy Spirit, you know, by saving sinners and bringing them into union with Christ and conforming them to Christ's image. In that sense, we can say, sure, the culture is being transformed because sinners are living for the glory of God. But, you know, Paul describes this in places such as Romans chapter 8, where he describes the creation now as a creation that's groaning, and a creation that's been subjected to futility, and it's longing for its redemption, the whole creation. And when we are raised from the dead, at the last day, the creation itself will be raised. And so there's a wonderful Reformed tradition on that aspect of the resurrection, not only of the flesh, as we confess in the Apostles' Creed, but the resurrection of all of creation at the end. And that's the work of God, and He brings this creation, which is now fallen and subjected to futility, He brings it into what he had intended for it from the beginning, which we ourselves, of course, have thrown into the depths of sin and misery. Where do you stand, and I realize I don't want you to feel the burden of speaking for the entire Reformed movement, unless you want to, But you take a look at the political action of evangelicals in this country. Would you say that people who are in Reformed churches can join with those people in the evangelical camp? on the certain social issues that are felt with great passion by the evangelical camp, or would you say that there is another way to work on these issues? Yeah, that's a whole quagmire, right? It can be. The traditions that I came out of, Foursquare and Assemblies of God, and even sort of charismatic evangelical non-denominational churches. I think many people who come out of those into anything other than that, even Roman Catholic or Lutheran or Reformed or whatever they might be in, certainly would look back upon those days and see a lot of overly politicized preaching and churches that were almost like political action committees Now, on the one hand, you know, I certainly don't want to, you know, look down upon that as all of it was wrong. I mean, there certainly was a lot of zeal for politics and involvement and, you know, cultural endeavor and so forth. But, you know, I guess from where I stand, a lot of evangelical churches use the church as a means to an end, you know, the church becomes a way to get policies enacted or the church becomes, say for example, the church that I was converted in, you know, we had a Republican who was running against Barbara Boxer, who's one of our senators, and came to the church and gave a whole spiel and sort of an interview in front of the whole congregation, this was several thousand people, And even then, I always thought it was sort of weird, because I thought we were coming to church for a different reason than that. So from where I sit, I certainly look to the Bible, the Word of God gives us direction, and it talks about Christians praying for the king. And in the first century, the Caesar was Nero, who was one of the worst offenders of persecuting Christians in the history of the Roman Empire. But yet Paul talks about praying for the king, and talks about living a godly life, and living a quiet life, and doing so in the sight of God is well-pleasing. But at the same time, we see Paul appealing to his Roman citizen rights in the book of Acts when he's arrested. He appeals to Caesar, and so he doesn't shy away from using his earthly citizenship, even as a Christian, to go to Rome and have his hearing before the Caesar. So, I guess from where I sit, looking at the landscape in which we have, we certainly see a lot of things overly politicized and a lot of churches using their pulpit as a place for political action. I would want to see that Christians as individuals and as members of churches gathering together in action for various reasons, you know, and across traditions, whether it's Roman Catholic or Evangelical or Reformed, to do that outside of the venue of the established church, just because it does tend to turn the church into a place of politics, which in the end is going to hurt the witness of the gospel that we're seeking to preach, as well as, in my opinion, it'll make the church no different than you know, any sort of society that exists in any given city, which then can be over-regulated by the government because it's been turned into a community event or a political action committee. Sure. The Reformed tradition is a confessional tradition. How does that differ from other denominations within Christianity? Well, we would say that we, along with all Christians, would believe the Word of God, and we would confess the Word of God to be true. The difference would be, of course, sort of thinking of it in our current context, that while everyone says they believe the Word of God, the question is, well, what does the Word of God teach? And when the Reformed and Lutherans and even Anabaptists were writing confessions and catechisms, they weren't They weren't doing so with any idea that people would look at these things and say, well, you have this human document and we have the Bible. We live in a time where there is a lot of that, where people say, well, it's no creed but Christ. So we would confess together with any run-of-the-mill church that has no statement of faith, creed, catechism, confession, that God's Word, the Bible, is God's Word. But the difference would be we would say, well, here's what we believe on any given subject, say, the issue of eschatology, the end. Here's what we say the Word of God teaches. Here's what we see in the Word of God very clearly and succinctly. And that would protect us from the whims and the wishes of any given person. So from where I've come from, where churches were very anti-confessional, not having any written document, because we didn't want to bind anybody, or we didn't want to quench the work of the Holy Spirit. But at the same time, what our pastor said really was our creed and our confession, and really was binding upon everyone. And if you didn't get along with the pastor's beliefs, it was time for you to move on to the next church. So you're saying that, for instance, you have things like the Canons of Dort and the Heidelberg Catechism, etc. You're saying that you put those ideas into print. Your tradition put those ideas into print and you have them to say, look this is what the doctrine is and it comes from the Bible so you really can't criticize it and it's probably what you believe anyway. It's just that we've made it easy to find. Yeah, there's sort of a truth in advertising principle that I've always tried to operate on when I've taught new members classes, people coming to us with no background in Reformed theology or tradition, and tried to say to them, you know, one of the benefits of having these little booklets with our catechism and our confession and the Canons of Dort, and also the early Christian creeds, it's so that you know up front, this is what we believe, this is what we expect you to believe, what we hope you'll believe, But it's also what the pastor believes, and this also keeps the pastor in check and gives him boundaries and guidelines and, you know, sort of structure so that people know ahead of time, okay, well my church believes on that topic, you know, X, Y, and Z, and I can expect my pastor to be faithful to that, you know, not to just go off on a tangent, and if he does, have a look at that that that that all of the postings now there's a way which we go about you know making those bill sentiments known uh... to those who are uh... over us as pastors Let's talk about the corporate worship, and we only have a couple of minutes left, so I'm going to ask you to give a somewhat brief answer on this. But my experience shows me that Reformed worship is varied from church to church, from denomination to denomination. I mean, for instance, the Crystal Cathedral, that's Reformed worship, or at least it portends to be, correct? In your opinion, what should it look like? How close to say Lutheranism or an Episcopal or a Catholic liturgy? Very good question. And now we have one minute, I'm told. Well, stay tuned for the next episode, right? Yeah, we probably should. We probably should. And I want to apologize because all during this half hour I wanted to get into your book, at least to some degree, but we haven't. And so I'm going to ask you to come back next week. And besides talking about corporate worship, we will talk about the book In Living Color. So you will join us, I hope. Yes, I will. Thank you. Wonderful. Our guest today has been Reverend Danny Hyde. We've been talking about the Reformed tradition and we were supposed to talk about his book, In Living Color. We'll do all of that next week, so I'm going to ask you to please join us right here, same time, same station, WGVU for Common Threads. I'm Fred Stella from the Interfaith Dialogue Association.